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I mean it's cheaper than going to a theater if a family of four watches it.

Setting prices for "group watching" during a quarantine is fucked tho

the model is pay-per-view sports, right? like you get a bunch of people over, someone orders pizza and wings, and the big fight is on the TV... those are like $50 right?

Just did some quick googling, apparently UFC matches are now up to $64.99 for PPV.

And it seems the average WWE show is $54.99.

you get a bunch of people over

my guess would be a 30-45 day exclusive as PPV and then a free release on the same channel for everyone else.

i woulda thought a one-time $100 a year premium tier price bump for any account that wants a yearly bundle of 3-6 premium releases is the way to go but these guys are fairly good at their jobs so i guess i'm likely wrong

i'm sensing a flaw in this pandemic-based incentive

Yeah, but this is squarely aimed at families. I mean, we only have one kid, but even then seeing a first run movie at our nearest theater is going to cost us a minimum of $35 for tickets + parking for the three of us, even if we don't buy any snacks.

The Mulan thing is not a rental/one-off, as such. You essentially "own" it, though only as long as you're a Disney subscriber.

Those scare quotes are doing some heeeaaavy lifting, there.

recently upgraded to the apple tv 4, and while the expanded options are great, it's exposed me to the shitty new interfaces of the streaming services i use most--prime n netflix. i cannot stand endlessly scrolling right to browse. bring back the grid, plz. tubi, thankfully, still uses the grid. for now.

maybe i'm being a dope... i mean ordinarily i'm right there with criticizing disney's role in the media oligopoly and their various dick movies and extortions (ex. the shutdown of the Fox library for repertory theaters - fucking awful, heinous bullshit).

but like... this is a $200 million movie that was supposed to recoup its costs through a major theatrical release, a release which is now in limbo if it ever happens at all. families who promised their kid they'd be going to see this movie now get to do so for $30, instead of $35 or $50 or $75 or whatever it costs for your number of kids and your local theater prices. they could also not put it out at all, and wait til theaters reopen. it's not like you need the new 'mulan' to survive, and if the kids are going crazy for lack of new entertainment, you can make a real 'movie night' of it for $30 plus the price of a pack of Orville Redenbacher.

that's really expensive versus renting a catalog title from other streaming services. but you're already playing for disney plus, and if you just want to watch something you can put on countless other programs. it's just if you want to watch Mulan (2020) specifically, before it comes out on physical media, you gotta pay extra. if you want to own Mulan (2020) forever, you just gotta wait for it to come out on physical media. and that will probably cost you about.... $30, based on the MSRP of the blu-ray/DVD combo pack for Onward, which came out just in time for the pandemic to gut its theatrical take. what's the gouge here?

the gouge is if you only have one kid i guess.
correct me if i'm wrong but i think mulan was expected to make more in the asian market than in the us in any case?

B-b-but if I “own” it, where is the FILE? A ha!

Hated the $20 price, really hate the $30 price.
Afraid this will do well enough that they'll just keep it going. But is Mulan THAT popular and anticipated? My bias is that all the animated Disney films post-Lion King were subpar.

yeah, I have one kid and I used to take him to saturday matinees with $6 tickets, so $30 for a movie is more than double what we paid. I'd have to invite over three of his friends to make it make sense. Thus this is shitty deal for anyone a) without a lot of kids or b) who wants to socially distance.

not to mention that we are supplying the screen/sound system etc.

they're charging 30 bucks and the new mulan probably doesn't even include that donny osmond 'make a man out of you' song

Like, once it's available, I'll buy Black Widow on blu-ray (as I do all the MCU fillums, quelle surprise). For, y'know, less than $30. And I'll be able to watch it whenever I like for as long as the disc holds up, even long after people are all like 'what's a Disney+, grandpa?' So, yeah, a $30 rental fee on top of the existing subscription cost seems pretty effing excessive and stupid imo.

was curious about pricing comparisons and found that the complete 8-film Harry Potter (with digital download) sells for $50 on blu-ray. $30 seems pretty hard to justify to me.

lol old lunch and i with the simulpost

You pay a premium because they mercifully limited it to a single film

xp

I definitely thought it was too much at first blush, but I do think the PPV event price comparisons are interesting ones to look at. As noted up above, WWE and UFC PPV events (which I believe are one-time only, or maybe just a limited 24-48 hour window to watch afterwards) are in the $50-$60 range. For another comparison, Phish offers the option to live stream video of all of their shows which, I believe, range from $29.99 to $34.99 (for HD, there is a cheaper option for standard definition) depending on the length of the show (they do longer Halloween and NYE shows). You only get those for 48 hours afterwards. I know those are traditionally "get your friends together to watch" events, but it's not a terrible point of comparison and doesn't make the $30 seem that awful, to me anyway, considering you won't have the 48 or 72 hour limit window you get with other VOD rentals.

And again, this is just for folks willing to pay for the, presumably, 45 day to 3 month "early access" window before it gets released on Blu-Ray and shows up for streaming more cheaply. I'm sure you'll still be able to buy the Blu-Ray for $22 at Target or wherever, you'll just have to wait a bit.

Really not trying to play captain save-a-megacorp here and I got a little sticker shock when I first saw that price, but I really don't think it's THAT out of line. Maybe I'll happily be proven wrong, but I think there are going to be a lot of people willing to pay this for first run movies that they can't get anywhere else, even more so during a pandemic.

Another thing I've been thinking about it the other costs for going to a traditional theater. When my wife and I wanted to go see Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (as a relatively recent example), we obviously weren't taking our 8 year-old so we hired a babysitter. All in, I think that movie ended up costing us over $80. If we could have watched it from home on opening weekend for $30, very seriously would have considered it.

Obviously these types of costs don't come into play for everyone, but there are different ways to look at it.

For what its worth, there is zero interest in Mulan in our house, so it's not really even a concern for that one. But I think we probably would spring for Black Widow if it happens.

i might break down simply cos I really wanted to see Mulan. maybe I can bootleg the movie and sell it and make back my money

"$5 Mulan, it'll look like you're sitting underneath the TV, and at times you will hear King Diamond playing in the background and see large piles of clothes that the videographer doesn't remember if he washed"

Worth $5, imho. Needs a well placed "oh shiiit" clearly audible during a key moment.

I'm not defending this "Mulan" thing, but isn't that how "owning" the "free" games on, say, Playstation works? That is, you get a couple of "free" games a month, if you're a subscriber, but you don't get to keep them if you cancel. "Mulan" is more onerous, in that you have to pay a premium above the premium service, but it's not like you're paying $30 for one viewing, or $30 for 36 hours or whatever. You can watch it as much as you'd like for as long as you'd like, as long as you're a subscriber. And honestly, I can't imagine anyone willing to pay $30 to watch "Mulan" will be in any hurry to cancel Disney any time soon.

I do think a better thing, if they were going to do this, might have been scaled pricing. That is, "Mulan" costs $30, but subscribers to Disney+ get it for $20 or something. Anyway, Disney gave subscribers Frozen II months ahead of schedule and Onward at no extra cost, so clearly they're trying to find something that works.

And sure, yeah, $30 is not free or even particularly cheap, but it is cheaper than a family of four going to see the movie on opening night, plus you can eat and drink whatever you want, you don't have to deal with other people (who sucked even before they could passively kill you) and you can pause to pee whenever you want. I mean, we went to the drive-in last week or so to see "Raising Arizona." We paid for premium tickets so that we were guaranteed parking by our friends, and that cost $50 a car for a 35-year old movie projected on the side of shipping containers with sound broadcast over left of the dial FM radio.

I think you are defending this Mulan thing.

xp to Josh: the value proposition for PS+ is considerably different. You get 25 to 30 games to play and access to their online network for a year for the cost of two viewing of Mulan.

so don't rent Mulan, then!

oh, i'm totally renting it. i just like arguing on the internet.

let's just make our own Mulan, how hard can it be

let's get down to business

AUDITIONS IN TEN MINUTES. need a Youtube video and a resume.

also the only parts available are people who get killed, everybody else will be played by Ned Raggett.

My kids were complaining that the new Mulan will suck because there are no songs or smack-talking dragons. That's one way to look at it, and they may be right! That said, nu-Mulan is directed by Niki Caro, who is great.

Any defense I'm making is rhetorical, because no way in hell am I paying $30 to stream a movie, let alone on a service I already pay for. (I won't pay for any Playstation service, either, but I recognize it as a great value. And the games, too, given the frequent deep discounts.) But back to Disney, my mindset is *because* I already pay a monthly fee for Disney+ I feel even more justified downloading anything Disney for ... let's just say significantly less than $30.

i paid nick cave $20 to watch his PPV performance film and was happy to do it, and I didn't even get to own it later. So I'm sure they're going to do alright at $30 aimed at people with families. We'll see. This could introduce a new model which I'd be happy to support, though, last night I really was missing going to movie theaters, even godawful sticky floor megaplexes that sell $12 cokes.

Getting off track, but PS+/XBL is mostly fine because it pays for ongoing multiplayer services, which do have a real cost (though they're still probably profiting off of, it's about $3-5/month when all is said and done). Plus the frequent sales on the standard buy-to-own games help.

The ESPN+/UFC PPV thing was a precursor to this (paying for ESPN+ and the UFC event on top of that). WWE is sort of different because if you're watching WWE you probably subscribe to their channel anyway which gives you every PPV and more at $10 a month.

I'm sure they're going to do alright at $30 aimed at people with families.

The trick, I imagine, is not to let your kids know it exists at all. "Moo what? Never heard of it. Is that about cows or something? Cows are boring. You don't want to watch that."

this is studio behaviour that dates back to the early days of home rental

studios want to charge the most per unit, so they can rrrrrrraaaake in the dough

SRP on dvds was still $29.99 as of a couple of years ago - they cant control people selling for less but in their heart of hearts man do they want people to pay that

Same with VOD. They want to charge the max because they want a bigger chunk of profit — their home entertainment divisions are still run by old dudes who refuse to grasp the “sell more at a low price” model — not just now, but like, FOREVER since vhs rental

i used to work in home entertainment media distribution so this is all VERY triggering lol

Wait, what? My mind is completely blown that a private company would want to maximize its profits. Holy shit, I need a minute to let this soak in.

also the only parts available are people who get killed, everybody else will be played by Ned Raggett.

Can do.

Trading margin for volume doesn't always work out well, they're probably smart to leech as much as they can from non-pirates with whiny children begging to see it.

(Haven't all these live action remakes been hot garbage anyway?)

Yeah but that's because they haven't starred me, as established.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYS6ifV9IN0

i've heard Pete's Dragon is pretty good. the Lion King is the only one i've seen and it was godawful. but Mulan has the angle of being a more radical reinvention of the material - seemingly no songs, no sidekick dragon, trailer playing up "historical epic adventure" vibes. like potentially it could actually be its own movie.

And again, like Pete's Dragon, a real director.

Yeah I was surprised by how much I liked that Pete's Dragon, it was surprisingly good.

Josh, who/what distinction are you making about not a "real director? Favreau? He's made some clunkers and I get why people don't like him, but I'd consider him a real direction. I never saw his Jungle Book remake and while, yes, the new Lion King was awful, I think that's less his fault than Disney's for insisting on a near shot-for-shot remake that was so faithful to the original cartoon.

guys just get a VPN and torrent this shit. that's 30 bucks in your kids' college funds, or your booze budget, up to you. disney does not deserve your money.

do I need to remind you about disney world

Yeah, Favreau. He's just a nothing. I would never see a movie because he directed it, but I would see a movie by Caro, Coogler, Taika, etc. Even Shane Black (and that Predator movie suuuuuuucked).